Nylon 66, a condensation polymerization product of adipic acid and hexamethylene diamine, is a low cost and high performance engineering thermoplastic material. It has been widely used in the automotive industry for its superior mechanical strength, high temperature durability and easy processibility.
In many automotive applications of plastics, superior friction and wear properties of the material are desired, for instance, some applications requiring the use of a low coefficient of friction plastic material because sliding movement between the plastic material and another material is involved. This is the case in applications such as bearings and gears wherein lubricants cannot be used.
Low coefficient of friction plastic materials have been developed by blending a base plastic material with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Due to the high melting temperature of polytetrafluoroethylene, a polyblend containing polytetrafluoroethylene is often difficult to process. Moreover, the high processing temperature required often results in a molded polyblend part having poor physical properties. Another added drawback of using polytetrafluoroethylene as a friction modifier at higher percentages of a polyblend system is the high cost of the polytetrafluoroethylene material.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a polyblend of nylon 66 having low coefficient of friction values and high wear resistance suitable for use in applications where frictional and wear properties are desired.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a polyblend of nylon 66 having low coefficient of frictions and high wear resistance by blending nylon 66 with a low cost thermoplastic material.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an injection moldable, low coefficient of friction and high wear resistant polyblend of nylon 66 which can be molded at moderate processing temperatures to produce plastic parts having superior mechanical properties.